The Pagan Left

Friday, September 30, 2005

Pridie Kalendas October

Modern Date : September 30th

Pridie Kalendas OctoberDay Before the Kalends of October

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This the eighth day of the Greater Eleusinian Mysteries was called Epidaurion Hemera. Once Aesculapius, often referred to as the god of medicine or healing, at his return from Epidaurus to Athens, was initiated by the repetition of the lesser mysteries. It became customary to celebrate them a second time so that those who had not been initiated might be lawfully admitted.

This is the 1st day of the 13th month of the Druidic calendar. The sequent letter is G, symbolic of the Ivy tree.

September is the 'magical' seventh month (after March).

NymphsOn the 27th day of the Greek lunar month Boedromion, in Erkhi, the Nymphs were worshipped, along with Gaia, Hermes, the river god Acheloos and a mysterious deity named Alochos (the Virgin). In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of female nature spirits, sometimes bound to a particular location or landform. Nymphs often accompanied various gods and goddesses, and were the frequent target of lusty satyrs.

They are personifications of the creative and fostering activities of nature. The Greek word íýìöç has "bride" and "veiled" among its meanings: hence, a married woman, and, in general, one of marriageable age. Others refer the word (and also Latin nubere and German Knospe) to a root expressing the idea of "swelling" (according to Hesychius, one of the meanings of íýìöç is "rose-bud"). The home of the nymphs is on mountains and in groves, by springs and rivers, in valleys and cool grottoes. They are frequently associated with the superior divinities, the huntress Artemis, the prophetic Apollo, the reveller and god of trees Dionysus, and with rustic gods such as Pan and Hermes (as the god of shepherds).

The Greek nymphs were spirits invariably bound to places, not unlike the Latin genius loci, and the difficulty of transferring their cult may be seen in the complicated myth that brought Arethusa to Sicily. Among the Greek-educated Latin poets, the nymphs gradually absorbed into their ranks the indigenous Italian divinities of springs and streams (Juturna, Egeria, Cavmentis, Fons), while the Lymphae (originally Lumpae), Italian water-goddesses, owing to the accidental similarity of name, could be identified with the Greek Nymphae. The mythologies of classicizing Roman poets were unlikely to have affected the rites and cult of individual nymphs venerated by country people in the springs and clefts of Latium. Among the Roman literate class their sphere of influence was restricted, and they appear almost exclusively as divinities of the watery element.

Jelal ad-Din RumiBirthday of the Sufi poet Jelal ad-Din Rumi (1207), who practiced ecstasy through chanting the names of the Deity in poetry, song and the famous turning movement of the dervishes.

"Very little grows on jagged / rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up / where you are. You've been / stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender."